The Shadow Wife - Diane Chamberlain [35]
“You must be tired now,” she said.
Carlynn nodded, then rested her head on Lisbeth’s shoulder.
“I wish you could talk more easily to people, Lizzie,” she said. “They won’t bite.”
“Well, I can’t,” Lisbeth said a bit defensively. Then she sighed. “It’s just one more thing you can do better than I can.”
The following day was a glorious clear Sunday, and Franklin invited his daughters to go sailing with him. Only Lisbeth accepted, just as he’d expected. As he’d hoped. He’d observed his less popular daughter at the party the night before and wanted some time alone with her.
They set sail on the bay in his small sloop, and he allowed Lisbeth to take over once they’d motored away from the pier. The sea was calm, a sheet of pale aquamarine glass, but there was a good headwind, and Lisbeth showed real skill as she tacked far out into the open bay.
“You’re getting very good at this, Lisbeth,” Franklin said.
“Not very hard today,” she said. “The water’s so smooth.” But she was smiling at the compliment all the same. She leaned back on her hands, eyes closed, her pretty face turned up to the sunlight.
“Did you enjoy the party last night?” Franklin asked.
“Yes,” she said without opening her eyes.
“What did you like about it?”
She shrugged. “The music, I guess.”
Franklin licked his lips, letting a silence form between them as he tried to think of what he could say next.
“I have the feeling it was not much fun for you, honey,” he said finally, and then quickly added, “And that’s all right. I never much enjoyed parties either when I was your age.”
She opened her eyes to look at him. “You didn’t?” she asked.
He smiled. “I was actually a lot like you, Lizzie. My brother—your uncle Steve—was always the popular one, the one who commanded attention. He was more intelligent than I was, better-looking and far more interesting to the girls. I was the shy one, always afraid to say anything in case I sounded stupid.”
She looked surprised. “But you’re much smarter and nicer than Uncle Steve,” she said, then added, “No offense. I know he’s your brother.”
He laughed. “That’s my point, sweetheart. As I grew up, I got more confident. What I was like when I was sixteen didn’t matter anymore.”
Lisbeth looked out to the vast Pacific, where the air was growing hazy with fog, a crease between her eyebrows.
“You’ll blossom, Lizzie. Someday. It can’t be rushed, and you’ll need to be patient. But you have a lot of happiness ahead of you, and you’ll probably appreciate it more than Carlynn, because she’s known nothing else.”
Lisbeth smoothed her hand across the gunwale. “I don’t really want Carlynn to be unhappy, though.” She looked past the sails at her father.
“It’s not an either-or thing, honey,” he said. “You can both be happy. There’s not a finite amount of happiness to be divided between the two of you, where if you get more, she gets less.” He leaned toward her. “You and Carlynn are so lucky to have each other,” he said. “Other friends will come and go, for both of you, but you’ll always be there for each other.”
“She’s so pretty,” Lisbeth said, fishing, he thought, for a compliment.
“She could use a few more pounds, if you ask me,” Franklin said, taking her bait, and Lisbeth smiled at him.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said and leaned back on her arms to face the sun again.
Lisbeth felt the slight sting of a sunburn on her face as she helped her father moor the boat to the pier. She’d hated to come in, hated to put an end to her time with the one person who seemed to value her more than Carlynn, but the fog was getting closer, and both she and her father knew how quickly it could surround them out on the bay. She walked ahead of him as they made their way over the dunes to the car. A couple of young boys were playing on the dunes, running and jumping and shrieking, and when she heard the thud behind her, she guessed it was just one of the boys leaping from the dune, so she didn’t bother turning around.
“Hey! Girl!” one of the boys cried out.
Still, she didn’t turn, figuring the boys were planning to play some sort of joke